Stormfront.org

After reading the Wikipedia page for Fight Club and seeing that some of the more major literary critics completely missed the usury bit, I took the search to google and ~6 down was a site called Stormfront.org. The '.org' is White Power. On their forums I found some very philosophical people, highly educated and as well versed in cognition as I am (and I might add even more articulate). And they are neo-Nazis. I soon received a Trojan Virus storm and have not visited the site since. These guys are smart and their web-counter was over 100,000. Palahniuk was not meaning for his work to be used in this way. Fight Club had nothing to do with eugenics, it had to do with power and slavery. It's clear how these ideas could be manipulated or taken in the wrong direction (made possible by those who do not value human life in the way which ironically their own God intended), but let's hope history does not repeat itself in this regard.

Do NOT visit this site. It is heavily guarded.

Strength, Valor, Style

I was looking for deals at Express over the holiday weekend and found a new line of Fitted Men's Collared Shirts called the MK2 (perhaps introduced the MK1 sometime in the past few years, maybe around the time we started the Iraq War).






The catalogue reads:

"Strength. Valor. Style. Military specs get a modern update. Refined details and at ease comfort create the perfect uniform. Strong in tradition. Modern in style. Cut slimmer through the shoulder, chest and waist from versatile cotton stretch fabric." (1)

Do you think that military-type clothing falls into fashion in and around times of war (or recession)? Regardless of what you say I'm going to still buy this shirt.



1) Express Fashion Website, MK2 label. Accessed November 29, 2009. http://www.express.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=18917

DMCA and WIPO

Laws, international and then federal, which attack me personally!

WIPO: World Intellectual Property Organization
In 1967, 16 member nations of the United Nations met to discuss the protection of laws in place for intellectual property (when did Darpa first go online? The implication here being that the internet would test the law in ways it had never been tested regarding intellectual property)(1). Of course the United States does not really take this seriously for almost 30 years when they give us the enormously uncreatively titled Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, in 1996 (signed by Clinton 1998):

"It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998 by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users" (2)

So, how do I assimilate this information? Time to dl everything I think I'll need for the next 10 years. And it's interesting that the United Nations knew what was happening in 1967. That seems very prescient.

1) World Intellectual Property Organization. A wikipedia article accessed November 29, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization

2) Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A wikipedia article accessed on November 29, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

3) On Piracy and the Future of the Media. A documentary from topdocumentaryfilms.com. Watched November 30, 2009. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/on-piracy/

No Fat Alumni!

Lincoln University (never heard of it) in Pennsylvania is requiring students with a BMI over 30 (and therefore clinically obese) to take an "exercise" course in order to graduate. (1) Let's see if this catches on, my guess is that it will not. Is it right to require this of students? Should it not be a choice (that is, to be fat)? This is going to be a major debate in healthcare in the next 20-30 years (Kessler's End of Overeating once again comes to mind).



1. Norris, Michele (host). Pa. University Targets Overweight Students, a segment on All Things Considered. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120784381&ft=1&f=2. Accessed November 25, 2009.

Oxford-Style Debates

I've watched a lot of debates on tv and internet (much easier to find on the internet). Here I've found NPR's podcast section for debates on a variety of important and interesting topics:

After I listen to a few I'll comment. I would also like to compare this to how debates are carried out on cable news.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6263392

Book Review: A Long Way Gone

Title
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Author
Ishmael Beah

Date of Publication
2008

Reason for reading
A general interest in foreign cultures & current events.

Visualization

I noticed one of my co-workers was having trouble typing. He looks at the keyboard when he types and his overall speed is low. I told him about how when I was in high school and wanted to improve my typing speed I used what I learned recently is called 'visualization'. This is where you picture yourself doing a task in your mind and it turns out the motor neurons actually used in that task light up in brain studies. Gymnasts use it now apparently (1)


1) Winston, Robert. The Human Mind, a documentary. BBC. Viewed at http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-human-mind/

New Direction for Educators at the U?

Read the attached opinion article from the Star Tribune. Then let's discuss.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/70662162.html?page=1&c=y

Should they be asking students to consider these issues? Should all citizens consider these issues? What would be the arguments against the task force's goals mentioned in the article?

Fish, how do we know what is good?

They all are, they're delicious and that's how we know to eat them. I'm joking of course.

Rosh and I go to dinner on Thursdays and I was looking for a website which offers an assessment of fish species cross-referenced for how and where caught. I'm going to order the Halibut tonight and ask the waiter where it was caught. If he answers the question, I will remain a customer of this restaurant, if he does not, I will not.

NOTE: This article is influenced by Food Inc., a film which was influenced by Michael Pollan who was influenced by Upton Sinclair who also wrote Oil, a book which was made into a movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair

1) Monterray Bay Aquarium Website
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_alternatives.aspx

McChrystal's Assessment

He's calling for a "civilian surge", among other things. He is trying to put this conflict into an historical perspective, which is nice to see. He is also taking cues from NATO, which again is nice to see (as opposed to unilateral action). Read the first 7 pages and you have enough (supposing your background is sound with the geography, history, current deployment in the region, and understanding of the current leadership).

The question really boils down to a simple one. Can America tackle a region where time and again, past powers have failed? (read for history of Afghanistan) I do not think that we can and certainly not in the short-term (<4 years). It would take 20-30 years probably and involve huge resources on our part. We'd have to build up infrastructure (including but not limited to schools, government offices, roads, and maybe even some factories) and provide HIGH levels of security the whole time. And let's not forget the Heroin-Trade.


http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf

What is Justice?

Socrates would ask this question to the everyday citizens in Ancient Greece (supposedly). Today, Michael Sandel asked it in the context of the bank bailouts and societal fairness. (1) It seems we're seeing through conflict (recession) that the most basic values are reasserted and assessed. Conflict may be inevitable until we can improve human memory/learning which ironically may require instituting broader social equality itself.






1) What is justice?Broadcast: Midmorning, 11/12/2009, 10:06 a.m.

Pollution and City Dwelling

New study compares 'walkability' in Vancouver neighborhoods with local levels of air pollution
A study done for Vancouver Metro (in anticipation of the 2010 Olympics) examined urban life and pollution and health sequelae resulting therefrom (1).

""There is urban planning now that focuses on walkability and exercise-friendliness," Marshall says. But while that idea is on planners' minds, "the connection to air pollution isn't as much." (2)

This forces me to question what my own community's pollution index is. I have a friend who works for St. Paul City Planning; I'll ask him next time I see him.

1. "Healthy Neighborhoods: Walkability and Pollution" Environment and Health Perspectives Journal. Volume 117, Number 11, November 2009. Accessed November 11, 2009.

2. Walking and Clean Air. UMN news. http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2009/UR_CONTENT_146640.html. Accessed November 11, 2009.

Fort Hood Shootings

This may be a tough topic but let’s address the Fort Hood shooting and media/populist reaction. Major Nidal Malik Hasan attacked fellow comrades last week leading to over 40 casualties including 13 deaths. Many news organizations immediately started questioning his heritage (Arab descent), his possible connections to extreme Muslim groups, and positing whether or not this was a terrorist attack. We all know this was a deplorable and cowardly act, so we don’t need to focus on that. Let’s instead talk about any of the following topics:
1) Does the media question other attackers connections to extreme groups (ex. abortion clinics) and therefore was their immediate reaction fair?
2) Not too long ago an American soldier killed 5 comrades at a base in Baghdad (1). Was this covered similarly to Hasan?
3) Should more attention be paid to stress surrounding military life during a time of war (ex. Stop loss)?

Let’s avoid “hindsight 20/20” conclusions such as, “the warning signs were there and Hasan should have been removed before he had a chance to carry out this act.”

Source:
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html?_r=1&hp

Blackwater (Xe) update

A rare picture of the devil? Okay, maybe not. Update on our Blackwater following. NY Times just reported that Blackwater spent $1 million to bribe Iraqi officials after Blackwater (unprovoked) killed 17 Iraqi citizens (1). And we still pay this firm to fight for us (2)?


Sources:
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/world/middleeast/11blackwater.html?_r=2&hp
2) http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill2

IRV for better or worse now in Minneapolis and St. Paul

So, as was discussed on a post last month, IRV is NOT proportional voting. We seemed to arrive at the conclusion that proportional voting is better than plurality (a subtype of which we currently use nicknamed "first past the post" voting). What's the difference? From what I gather, a vote in proportional voting has the potential for sending MORE THAN ONE representative in voting for a single office. For example, and this is probably extreme, pretend we are voting for our House representatives. In Minnesota we have eight House representatives and all right now are either Democrat or Republican. Each district votes for two-year terms and the first with a majority in a two man/woman race or plurality in 2+ wins the seat and represents the entire district. What about the other votes? If a Republican wins in my district with 60% of votes and 20% goes to the Republican and 20% goes to an Independent. Where do the other 40% of votes go? The answer: under the current system they disappear. Proportional Voting takes these votes and gives them to the House in the form of another person (I'm not quite sure yet how, but maybe 10 people go per district or perhaps districts would need to be removed and simply vote by state). So in the last example, maybe 6 Republicans go, 2 Democrats, and 2 independents and then my district is represented not completely, but more than it was in the plurality system. A particular type of proportional voting, party list, is show here as an example of which other countries use this voting system:

"There are many variations on seat allocation within party-list proportional representation. The three most common are:

• The D'Hondt method (or Jefferson's method), used in Albania Croatia, Spain, Portugal, Israel, Austria, Finland and Poland, among other places;
• The Sainte-Laguë method (or Webster's method), used in many Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, and the German state of Bremen;
• The largest remainder (LR) methods, including the Hamilton method."

1) Barran, Madeleine, "St. Paul voters re-elect Coleman, approve IRV" http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/03/st-paul-mayor/

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party-list_proportional_representation

Open Source Voting

Gregory Miller and John Sebes are making a case for something called 'open source voting'.

“Currently two vendors impact 80 percent of the vote” nationwide, Miller said, referring to Premier/Diebold and Election Systems & Software, which recently merged in a sale. But if all the states that have expressed interest in adopting the open source system follow through with implementing it, about 62 percent of the nation’s electorate would be voting on transparent, fully auditable machines he said." (1)

Apparently these companies make it very difficult for us to have standardization of practice (for reasons which are not obvious, we can extract and dissect in the discussion). Miller purports, "If they simply sold the machines to all the precincts, they would have three million sales and that would be the end of their business." So what do we see instead? Machines which frequently and according to Miller, malfunction, planned obsolence, long-term Draconian-termed contracts and continual "updates".

1)Zetter, Kim, "Nation’s First Open Source Election Software Released" Accessed November 4, 2009, -http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/open-source/-published in Wired online magazine October 23, 2009

Top Tax Bracket: A brief history

Brent and I were discussing this Saturday night. Scroll down near the bottom of this page to see the history of the top tax bracket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States

How fiscally “responsible” of us to have rates at 80-90% between 1940-1945 when we were funding a war. I’m guessing this was just (i.e., justice) because the top earners were probably those associated with the military-industrial complex and benefiting the most due to the war (probably needs fact checked). Compare that to what Reagan did in 1981 (70% down to 50) and then in 1986 (50% down to 35%) then Bush did in 2003 (Bush: while funding two wars). Fiscally “Conservative”? Someone needs to define this for me, because I don’t get it.

Original Documents

The letter on the left is from Heinrich Himmler to his superiors. It is an answer to the Jewish Problem. The letter on the right is from an 14-year-old Fidel Castro asking FDR for $10.

1) American Originals, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/origina2.html

Authorship rules

Was Osha breaking them?

http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html

"Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3."

Since the paper was never published, I guess not. What has been done in the past however, e.g. Bilal, was to publish several years after his exit from the lab without giving him notice of the pre-publication procedures and therefore not allowing him to participate in the writing process. This has is how she justifies putting him in the "Acknowledgemet" section.
P11: "All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support."

James Lovelock - he stole my idea!!

It's not really my idea, but I had come to this conclusion maybe 1-2 years ago on my own. He calls what I am talking about the Gaia Hypothesis (1). He uses empathy as his primary hypothesizing system, again something I've been doing now for a while and I wrote an essay on the matter which is in the process of publication. Empathy here has a different connotation than you might be thinking. It is almost synonymous with imagination. Empathy could mean that you are pretending to be an influenza virus in a respiratory droplet and are watching as the host sneezes you out and you land on a different host's shoulder. It could also mean, as is the case with the Gaia, that you are the Earth and operating like a cell or machine, have various functions of homeostasis (among which is humans but other things are included). So empathy here is imagination, not pretending to be someone else as it is normally utilized. This is interesting to think about. Empathy clearly has survival advantage, but it can be used in these other ways which give rise to entire branches of science. Essentially though, empathy is best suited for what it evolved to do, predict the actions of other individuals. How useful could it possibly be when applied to what appears to be completely different situations? And is empathy the seed of imagination/creativity? I'll see what some of my neurology and neuroscience books say, but from what I remember of them, this question is not addressed.



1) Lovelock, J.E. (1965). "A physical basis for life detection experiments". Nature 207 (7): 568–570. doi:10.1038/207568a0

2) http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/03/midmorning1/

The Wire - Greatest television show of all time?

Last night I finished season 5 of The Wire. I am more documenting that than anything else as I think I'll need time to process the show and write something meaningful on its behalf. This is likely the best show I have ever seen and may in fact be the best television show of all time. This, of what I've read of Shakespeare, lines right up there (even though the aims of the two are different). It really is like literature on screen.

David Simon the shows creator, worked with Ed Burns, a former detective (and I thought crime journalist for a Baltimore or Washington based newspaper but I may be thinking of Simon). I highly recommend reading any of his books or watching any of his interviews (easily found on google or youtube one of which is linked below). I'll try to find some of his articles from the Baltimore Sun and bring those for discussion here.


http://www.hbo.com/thewire/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire#cite_note-greatest-2

Bill Moyers compares him to Dickens but before that Edward Gibbon!!!
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=david%20simon&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#